Dream of One who Walks Alone
by Melantha Frost
Summary: Set before RotG events. Jack is alone and broken, and wanders the Earth. See how he goes mad and loses his sanity - and his life. One-shot. Slightly dark themes. Character death. R&R, it's my first fanfic!


He sighed as the wind dropped him onto the always frozen lake. "Thanks wind, you're always there for me..."

And that was the truth, the only ones he could trust were his staff and the wind. He couldn't even trust himself, after watching mortals die from blizzards he had created.

Sometimes he wondered what it was like to be seen, like other spirits and the oh-so-great Guardians. Sometimes he pretended he was one of the mortals, and sometimes he wondered that if mortals were born from a mother's womb, how was he created? And this was usually when he realized he thought too much. Then he'd be back to pretending he didn't exist.

It was a seemingly endless cycle: Thinking, wondering, pretending, wondering, attempting to cease his existence. Then it started all over again.

He didn't like others, human or spirits. He liked only the children, he loved to play with them. But more often than not, he found himself alone in the forest, or flying high above the clouds with the aid of the wind. He watched from afar, made it snow where it was supposed to, and gave snow days to children.

Some of those nights, when he decided to keep watch over the children of the city, he saw their dreams. He saw the beautiful golden sands weave their way throughout the city. He saw their wishes, their memories of the day, their imagination. He saw dinosaurs and fluffy kittens, and dragons flying in the night sky. And he saw the maker of those dreams - the Sandman.

Sandman, or Sandy, always greeted him, in a positive way. He was the only other being he trusted. Sandy never forgot, or ignored, or turned on him. They'd sit on the roof, or on Sandy's cloud, and talked. Sandy would make images above his head while absent-mindedly spinning dreams, and Jack would ask - about anything and everything. Jack wanted to know about others, what they were like, how they acted.

When Sandy left, Jack would go back to his own wallowing. He'd despair he'd never find friends like Sandy, never to be seen, heard, never to have human believers.

Then the voices. The terrible, dark, scathing voices. They'd make him feel even worse, make him cry out to the world, make his heart feel like it was being torn out and stepped on. He howled to the heavens, screamed in his mind, yelled at the unfairness of his life. He'd glare at the moon, cursing at MiM, sometimes unable to hold in all his anger, shrieking out obscenities.

"Oh Jackie, Jackie, Jackie... Look, just watch, did you see? Did you see that girl? Did you see the light in her eyes die out as the life seeped out of her, onto the cold, hard, snowy, ground? Snowy - because you made that blizzard! It's all your fault!" There's voice one, whom he had named Nightshade.

"She's right, you know. Your worthless! You bring fun, games, and death, how nice, put that on your resume and see how others cower away from you. They fear you, Jack Frost. And the children - they can't see or hear you, they don't believe! No wonder the other spirits hate you. No wonder only Sandy comes to visit. Heck, maybe he pities you! Maybe he doesn't like you at all, or maybe he's using you." There's voice two, Flurry.

Voice three was the quietest. The darkest. The youngest. She did not have a name, Jack never got the chance. Jack always heard, and saw, her in his dreams. Always with her falling through the frozen lake. His frozen lake. He felt like he knew her, felt like he was not, in fact, alone, that he and the girl could have, and maybe used to be, friends. Yet that was not the case.

There was many a night when he did fall asleep, usually from exhaustion. He would toss and turn, and Sandy always - somehow - forget to watch the sprite's dream. Jack would - always, it always turned out like this - run with a girl younger than he, and their destination: the frozen lake where he was born. Yet when he looked down on himself, he had a normal skin color, a little bit pale, but normal, and he had chocolate brown hair. The girl would grab his hand a pull him along onto the ice, despite his protests. They would dance around, carving pictures into the ice, carving memories to be treasured.

His protests were not invalid, however, as the ice would crack. Right under his sister's feet, where he had left her. They would play 'hopscotch,' but with a twist. When he swung her over to the snowbank using his staff, she would let go of the stick and grab his hand, and would not let go. When the chocolate-haired boy gazed into her eyes, he noticed a glint of hate, repulsion, rejection. She would hiss, "Why did you leave me? You promised. You promised you would always be with me. You broke that promise. How could you? You said you loved me. You never taught me how to skate by myself, like you promised. Why?"  
Then the girl would swing him by his hand, which she was still holding. He would slide to the very spot where she was before, the very spot with those cursed cracks, the very spot in which he would die. And right before he fell through, he would always plead with the shade, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

Then he would fall through. He lost all air in his lungs, his lips turned blue, hair turned white, and he would close his eyes. And there was no more.


End file.
